Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“If there is a silver lining to suffering trauma, it is the opportunity to learn about one’s self, to trail mental fingers over a previously unrecognized core of inner strength.”

A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

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Sometimes a title just does it for you. A Libertarian Walks into a Bear – as a title – makes me smile every time. Make of that what you will. Its author’s writing style is also sly and occasionally funny which works to balance out the serious nature of a lot of what is being discussed in the narrative.   Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling is a local New Hampshire journalist who gets pulled into the world of Grafton, NH and its story of libertarians and bears through what […]

We’re Traveling, We’re Traveling—Off the Page and Down the Rabbit Hole

Conspiracy Nation: Exposing the dangerous world of Australian conspiracy theories by Ariel Bogle; Cam Wilson

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I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Cookers, sovereign citizens and conspiracy theorists can be a fascinating bunch, albeit in the same way a train wreck is fascinating. Yes, it can be very amusing to watch them try and ‘pseudo law’ their way out of trouble when they caught doing something very stupid, but there’s often something darker lying under the surface. For every giggle you get from listing to some SovCit proclaim ‘I’m traveling, I’m traveling!’ after being pulled over by […]

In a Hopeless Place

Woodworking by Emily St. James

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Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: citizen. One of the major subplots involves the characters in this book using their rights as citizens to rally around a longshot candidate they want to try and elect. There has never been an easy time for trans people. That wasn’t true in the 1990s. That wasn’t true before Trump I or Trump II. That’s not true today. Depending on where people live, there have been times that are less bad. But never a time that has been “good.” […]

Settle Yourselves Down for a STORY.

The Knight of Maison-Rouge by Alexandre Dumas

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cbr17bingo Citizen How many times has The Three Musketeers been filmed?  Dumas knew how to tell a tale, even though he could be fairly verbose, at times.  But hey. when you get paid by volume, that makes sense. The Knight of Maison Rouge, the character named in the title, is a champion of Marie Antoinette, in that murky period in French history between the execution of her husband, Louis XVI, and her own.  The government consisted of various battling contingents of “citizens” each trying to […]

Citation and murder

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby

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bingo row 5 – citizen S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed takes place in Flannery O’Connor’s south. The protagonist – even cites her because he is so very well read. The book is set c. 2017 and was published in 2023. Normally several years doesn’t make a big difference, but considering that topics included confederate statues being taken down, Black lives mattering, and racist cops, I think setting it pre-2020 makes a big difference. But I’m not Black and I’ve never been to Virginia so […]

The Path to Eo’s Dream

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Golden Son by Pierce Brown

Morning Star by Pierce Brown

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Bingo Squares: School (Red Rising is set at the Institution, a school of sorts) Black (Golden Son but all of them have mostly black covers) Citizen (Morning Star but all of them deal with the idea of class and status and citizens’ rights/place in society) I’m not generally a big re-reader though I have been doing so more over the years than I used to when I was trying to read all the books. Yet, somehow this is now my third time reading the original Red […]



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